The results of the NGO "ForestCom" work on forest protection and forestry development in 2021

In 2021, the "Forest Initiatives and Society" NGO continued to work on the protection of Ukrainian forests. Last year, experts of the NGO "ForestCom" carried out measures to monitor changes in the forest cover and detect illegal felling:

• examined 65 hectares of forest clearings and 231 hectares of forest areas for illegal felling and significant forest disturbances and documented fellings with a volume of 200 cubic meters for a total amount of damage of about 2 million hryvnias.

• carried out 16 expert studies on detected forest violations at the request of law enforcement agencies, namely: the Security Service of Ukraine, the State Bureau of Investigation, the Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine and the State Customs Service of Ukraine.

• prepared and sent 26 reports on the results of inspections of forest areas to law enforcement and control bodies on behalf of public activists, where they described in detail the discovered facts that indicate significant forest violations and possible illegal logging;

In addition, multi-directional research was carried out in order to optimize the processes in the forest industry:

• studied the impact of openness of public data in the field of ecology on solving problems with environmental pollution;
  
  
  
• identified trends, suggested changes and ways to optimize document flow in forestry;
  
  
  
• analyzed, as an example, forest restoration in several forestry enterprises and provided appropriate recommendations.

We also held a number of educational events for law enforcement officers, activists, concerned citizens and schoolchildren regarding the features of forest protection and the diversity of nature.

The full version of the report can be found at the link.